Donald Trump uses pardoning of Thanksgiving turkey to make digs at impeachment hearings
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Donald Trump’s White House has “engaged in unprecedented obstruction”, former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal has declared in a damning interview with MSNBC, as the White House admits it has no record of a key call between the president and EU ambassador Gordon Sondland that Republicans had hoped would exonerate him.
Mr Trump made a surprise Thanksgiving visit to Afghanistan on Thursday, serving turkey to American troops at the Bagram Air Field and pledging to resume peace talks with the Taliban just three months after declaring the process “dead”.
His inner circle had gone to some lengths to conceal the trip from the media, sending out Mr Trump’s motorcade to his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, as a red herring after the president tweeted a picture of his head Photoshopped onto a shot of Sylvester Stallone in character as underdog boxer Rocky Balboa to serve as a distraction.
The House Judiciary Committee meanwhile gave Mr Trump a deadline in one week to say whether his legal counsel intends to introduce evidence and call witnesses in upcoming impeachment proceedings that could lead to formal charges of misconduct.
The Democratic-led committee is due to begin weighing possible articles of impeachment against Mr Trump next week.
Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal
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House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler sent a two-page letter to the president setting a deadline of 5 pm on 6 December for the president's counsel to specify intended actions under the committee's impeachment procedures.
The procedures set out rules by which the president can call witnesses, introduce evidence and make presentations.
Mr Nadler set the same deadline for Republican lawmakers on the committee to notify him about intended witnesses and evidence and scheduled a 9 December meeting to consider the matter.
The Judiciary panel is expected to hold a series of impeachment proceedings, including an initial hearing on Wednesday at which legal experts are due to testify about the constitutional grounds for impeachment.
The committee invited Mr Trump to participate in the hearing and gave him until 6 pm on Sunday to say whether he or his legal team would attend.
The impeachment probe is looking into whether Mr Trump abused his power to pressure Ukraine to launch investigations of political rival Joe Biden and a discredited conspiracy theory promoted by Trump that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
After weeks of closed-door witness depositions and televised hearings, three investigating panels led by the House Intelligence Committee are due to release a formal report soon after lawmakers return to Congress on Tuesday from a Thanksgiving recess. The report will outline evidence gathered by lawmakers on the panel, along with those on the Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees.
After Wednesday, the Judiciary panel, which could recommend a full House impeachment vote before Christmas, is expected to hold a hearing to examine the evidence report and further proceedings to consider formal articles of impeachment.
Reuters contributed to this report. Please allow a moment for our live blog to load
Progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2020, has attacked Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg over a new ad in which he appears to go after Bernie and Elizabeth Warren on the cost of university.
While Sylvester Stallone has so far maintained a dignified silence in response to Trump's using his image from Rocky III for a dumb meme with which to mislead reporters about his secret trip to Afghanisatn but that hasn't stopped others speaking for the beloved action star.
Trump praises 'Courageous American Warriors' in Afghanistan
The president's first tweet of the day (other than a cheeky retweet for conservative web loons Diamond and Silk) is this in praise of the troops he spent Thanksgiving with.
On Trump's pledge to resume peace discussions with the Taliban, the Islamist group's spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters that they were "ready to restart the talks" that ended after the president called them off on 9 September.
“Our stance is still the same. If peace talks start, it will be resumed from the stage where it had stopped,” he added.
Bill O'Reilly resurfaces thanks to Trump and Hannity
Disgraced ex-Fox host Bill O'Reilly has made an unwelcome return to the news this week after Trump granted him an interview on Tuesday and Sean Hannity openly invited him to return to the network that made his name - both men overlooking the enormous sexual misconduct scandal that ended the broadcaster's career in 2017 at the height of the #MeToo movement.
Even O'Reilly's corgi seems concerned about his possible return to the limelight.
In other Fox News, here's another shout for this extraordinarily unhelpful "defence" of Trump from Tucker Carlson.
Boris Johnson warns Trump to stay out out of UK general election
British prime minister Boris Johnson has warned Trump not to get involved in the general election campaign ahead of the president's trip to the UK. The Conservatives will be wary of any endorsements or comments on Brexit from Trump during the visit, starting nine days before the public goes to the polls on 12 December.
Johnson was asked on Friday about the president's unprecedented intervention when he gave his backing to the PM and urged him to form a pact with Nigel Farage. "When you have close friends and allies like the US and the UK, the best thing is for neither side to get involved in each other's election campaign," Johnson told LBC radio. The president is set to visit Buckingham Palace for a reception on Tuesday, before he joins world leaders during a Nato summit in Watford the following day.
(Stefan Rousseau/PA)
Asked during a press conference if he would meet specifically with Trump, the PM replied: "I'm obviously going to be hosting the Nato leaders' meeting and look forward to meeting all the Nato heads of government coming to that meeting."
The president last month hailed Johnson as "the exact right guy for the times" and warned that Jeremy Corbyn would take the UK to "bad places". Trump did have some criticism for Johnson's Brexit deal, claiming it hinders trade with the US. In a proposal rejected by the Tories, the president also urged the PM to form an "unstoppable force" with the Brexit Party leader Farage.
Trump's visit will come as Labour warns that the NHS will be "up for sale" to US corporations in a post-Brexit trade deal under the Tories.
Party leader Corbyn has revealed a 451-page dossier he claims is "proof" the health service is on the table, but Johnson has rejected this as "nonsense".
Inside the ethnic cleansing of Turkey’s Syrian 'safe zone'
Richard Hall has this update on Turkey's military assault on the Kurdish fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces, America's allies in the fight against Isis abandoned by President Trump in October.
Texas senator and Zodiac Killer Ted Cruz is spending his Thankgiving holiday berating one of President Trump's favourite eateries for making a donation to the civil rights advocacy group the Southern Poverty Law Center and stopping its funding of evangelical (and anti-LGBT+) Christian organisations.
"To fund those who hate your customers is just sad," he says, not recognising that there's no way to rant about fried chicken without sounding insane.
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